Italian Beginners

Participation in our evening classes provides far more than the opportunity to learn new skills but also numerous benefits to our mental health and wellbeing. Evening classes are known to lower stress levels, improve confidence, increase social integration, contribute to personal growth and lifelong learning to name just a few advantages.

This course is suitable for anyone who has never studied Italian before and wants to start from zero in a relaxed and supportive setting.

During the first term you will get to know your classmates and cover the below topics:

• Building confidence in pronunciation through interactive activities, pair and group activities and repetition.

• Learning greetings & how to introduce yourself, asking where someone is from, learning nationalities & countries.

• Learning numbers, asking for prices.

• Ordering in a café/restaurant, asking for the bill, learning food and beverage vocabulary.

During the Spring and Summer term you will learn to:

• introduce and find out about others’ leisure activities

• talk about work and hobbies and how often you do them

• use days and dates

• express likes and dislikes

• describe cities and learn about Italian culture

• follow and give directions to places around town

• tell the time in Italian

Using simple but authentic reading texts, you will learn everyday vocabulary, enabling you to get by when travelling to Italy and to communicate on a simple level with local people. As well as learning the language, you will also gain an insight into the culture and lifestyle of Italians.

As this is a beginners course, we will only cover the basic rules of grammar, necessary to create simple sentences independently and to produce simple pieces of writing such as postcards & informal emails.

Tenses covered: regular and irregular present tense

We will be using  ‘New Italian Espresso 1’ - ISBN 9788861827240 which can be purchased new (£40-£52) or second hand. It is recommended that you purchase this comprehensive textbook which will be used from beginners level all the way through the intermediate and upper intermediate levels at Gloucestershire College. Photocopies can be provided for anyone who doesn’t yet have the textbook. Students need to keep a portfolio of their work, so ideally bring along an A4 folder, paper and plastic wallets.